it's 40k kilometers around the world's circumference
Although we don’t find Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts walking the streets of Notting Hill, we do find a rose petal latte at Farm Girl café that is unique, delicious, and beautiful.
On Saturday morning, there is an outdoor market lining Portobello Street. We stroll up and down and around the block, soaking up the pastel painted houses, antique pop-up shops, coffee cafes and pastry shops. It all makes for a beautiful morning.
The wedding is the main reason for this European adventure. One of my closest friends from grad school is getting married in London. It is an Indian wedding complete with many days of festivities, lots of delicious Indian food, beautiful flowers, British hats, big red buses, afternoon tea, and a grand finale in London’s Natural History Museum. The wedding is spectacular. Each venue is beautiful. Catching up with old friends is long overdue and feels great. The bride looks radiant. Each event features her in a new sari or dress. We felt so happy and honored to be able to celebrate with the very happy couple.
Annecy is built alongside a beautiful lake, and to appreciate this lake, we cycle around it and paraglide over it. Atop our rented orange cruisers, Lindsey and I take to the lake’s bike path. The path is crowded with other cyclists, walkers, runners, and rollerbladers. The sun comes in and out of the clouds, making it really quite warm. We stop frequently for pictures, cherries, and the occasional dip in the lake. We end the ride hungry and sweaty, and ready to find a hearty sandwich made of mostly baguette.
The following day, we soak up the same view from a few thousand feet in the air tied to a parachute (and also tied to someone who knows what he’s doing). This paragliding route is so popular that there is an air traffic control person on take-off and landing. I calm myself a little by estimating how many gliders there must be every year, and decide that it has got to be safe. But still with a lot of adrenaline, I run off the equivalent of an alpine black-diamond ski slope. Shortly after, my heart rate slows just a touch as I settle into my seat, but given my intense fear of heights, I never totally calm until landing. The rush of air around us, the view of the lake below, being at the same level as the alpine peaks, and sharing this rush together makes for an amazing 30 minutes!
After a wonderful weekend in Princeton, meeting my newest nephew for the first time and celebrating a milestone birthday for my pops, we continue eastward to France. We arrive just after noon, rent a cherry red Fiat 500, somehow figure out how to escape Charles De Gaulle airport, and start heading towards Annecy in Southeastern France.
With some French tunes playing through Spotify’s French Café Lounge playlist, we are getting ourselves in the spirit. Along the way, we have planned to enjoy the French country, the terroir of some of the most valuable and delicious wine in the world. Driving through Burgundy, we find ourselves in Vezelay. Vezelay is a small hilltop town around since ancient times, and its famous Romanesque Basilica of St. Magdelene has made it a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We wander through town, step into the main church to warm choir music, and sit down to enjoy a meal outside of an enchanting green-painted restaurant. We quickly learn that the menu isn’t too helpful without an English speaking waiter, thus we wait a bit for someone to come by. Although the meal is complete with some salad, well-prepared fish, and wine, we are easily most thrilled by the cheese plate.
We learn to appreciate the finer parts of shave ice here on Kauai. The light and fluffy consistency that only the best shops seem to be able to achieve despite all using seemingly the same machine to make it. Homemade syrups from organic Hawaiian ingredients. Crowds of people outside trying to cool themselves off using these pop-shops as the best way to do it.
We try shave ice from many highly reputable locations on the island: Hee Fat General Store, Wailua Shave Ice, Uncle’s, and Koloa Shave Ice. I think my favorite is from the Wailua, while Lindsey’s is from Hee Fat. Both are delicious and easily #1 and #2 in our minds.
The Dolphin is the name of a restaurant in Hanalei that has been around for 30 years and is clearly a favorite of the locals. When we ask where to go to dinner, Dolphin is a name that seems to appear in everyone’s list. So we go.
We eat only sushi and love the whole experience. They are completely full so we gladly sit at the sushi bar in Jeremy’s section, and he takes great care of us. I would usually try to share now what we ordered to make sure that I remembered and to help suggest things for future goers; however, we put our fates completely in Jeremy’s hands and although he always told us what he was making us, most of it wasn’t on the menu. We gave him no direction and he clearly made us what he was best at creating.
The meal was spectacular. We had some fabulous poke, some fish that was torched right in front of us, rolls with tempura, nigiri with bacon on top, some with jalapenos, everything caught that day, everything delicious. So good in fact that we return to sit in front of Jeremy the next night for an appetizer before continuing onwards. And when we return, we will definitely come back. Jeremy made us feel like a local, made us feel like we belong, made us feel like we have a friend in this new place.
Kind of like Disneyland, this day featured Matterhorn as our backdrop. We start the day early from Torino as we drive our rented Fiat 500 towards Cervinia and the mountains. As we drive, night turns to dawn, and the mountains along with Roman ruins in their foothills come into view.
We aren’t entirely sure what we are getting ourselves into. The mountains are relatively naked of snow, the weather warm, we haven’t really packed a lot of ski stuff (as we both only brought carry-ons), and we’re hoping it’s going to be easy to figure out lift tickets, rentals, and the rest. We are also hoping that I’m going to be able to manage the narrow, mountains roads in our manual car.
After a couple false starts like the most convenient rental spot being out of skis, we hit the slopes just as the sun is hitting the entirety of the mountain. And although they are having to make some of their own snow, our first several chair lift rides to get up the mountain are as spectacular as we imagined they would be.
Usually while skiing (for the once-every-other-year ski trip I typically take), I enjoy chili in a bread bowl with some grated cheese on top for lunch. It turns out Cervinia doesn’t have this on the menu. We grab our trays and enter the line not really knowing what’s going to end up on them by the end. We immediately grab a pair of rolls (which turned out to be free… we should’ve gotten more) and some nice cheeses. We continue down the line, skip the prosciutto, reluctantly skip the buffalo mozzarella, and then order some pasta. The lunch is a delicious reminder that we’re definitely still in Italy. We eat sitting outside overlooking the Alps.
Before the day wraps, we make it to the top of the mountain. The winds are heavier, the temperatures are a little colder, but all is worth it because the views are even more spectacular. Surrounded by mountains on every side, I feel at the same time so small and so big. And as we ski down the last run of the day, the sun slowly slips behind one of these peaks leaving only the tops of other mountains still in light. Exhausted, we find a local coffee shop on the road back to Torino for a cafe dopio and a chance to flip through the many pictures so we can immediately relive what we just did. Looking at these pictures kind of feels like looking at the picture of yourself with your hands raised in the white and red carriage of Disneyland’s Matterhorn already feeling nostalgic for the amazing day that isn’t quite yet over.
Before leaving Copenhagen, we wanted to share a couple other highlights of our adventure here.
Our stop at the 1847-founded Carlsberg Brewery was both educational and tasty, and it featured some very nice clydesdale horses.
We enjoyed a slightly more refined evening at the Jazzhus Montmartre, a Copenhagen institution that was lost and brought back relatively recently. We actually sat next to an older man who had used to come to the old Montmartre back in the day, and he said that it was almost the same today as it used to be. He also pointed us to another more hidden jazz club in the middle of town that was open all night. We made sure to check this other spot out as well, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any live music the night we were there.
We had a pair of very traditional Danish Christmas lunches complete with pan-fried filet of fish, slices of pork, smoked salmon, some pickled vegetables, and rye bread. Although it may not have been our favorite cuisine of the trip, we were happy to be able to walk away from our journey having tasted traditional Danish foods.
We visited Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district in Copenhagen. The canal is lined with brightly colored townhouses that all have fun little restaurants on their bottom floors. The best way to describe this area is cute. We enjoyed some lunch, some shopping, and some walking around while in Nyhavn.
When trying to find a place to eat in a new city, the challenge is always finding great value — the best food for a good cost. That doesn’t mean eating on the cheap, and it doesn’t mean finding the top rated restaurant and eating at a premium. Instead, it is finding that place that might not be so well known yet and sitting down for an incredible meal. However, by nature of it being less well known, it is harder to find. To help in the search, there’s TripAdvisor, there’s Yelp, there’s Google, there’s FourSquare, and many others. None of them is perfect, but all helpful in their own ways.
Some by luck and some by Lindsey’s great searching powers of the Internets, we stumble upon Spisestedet Feed. This restaurant is only about 6 months old, it is in the basement level, and although it has already begun to receive some very good reviews, it is relatively unknown. It was started by two friends in their early twenties looking to become great chefs, and the food they are producing shows that they are serious in this mission. Starting with the appetizer, the meal was delicious. From the plating to the taste to the service, the experience was as great. And because it is still a new restaurant run by young 20-somethings, we really appreciated that it didn’t yet seem too pretentious. The two of them did the cooking and the serving. One of the walls had a graffiti mural and the other a hand-drawn timeline of how they hope to reach their dreams. And for the icing on the cake, the final bill was very reasonable given this whole experience. There still is and will always be room for improvement, but we are confident that this restaurant is well on its way.
We wish both of these young chefs all the luck in the world!
Day 2 begins when two gloggy (that’s a Danish joke) travelers step out for coffee. We walk into the street and are struck by the silence. It’s 7am the day after Christmas in the rain, but still, I’ve never been able to hear the squeak of my sneakers in a city quite like I am along the water in Copenhagen. We duck into our coffee shop. I call it “ours” because even before trying the coffee, we decide to come every morning. The place is cozy. Candles are being lit and it’s empty inside. It smells of baked goods and the barista is welcoming. As we’re scanning the breakfast menu, fresh croissants are pulled out of the oven. Without consulting one another, we order two and sit while she makes our lattes. On a drizzly December day, it’s the kind of place you never want to leave.
We walk back to our Airbnb, shower, and slowly prepare for the day. Our first stop is Our Savior Church. Closed for services. Our second stop is Carlsberg brewery. Closed for the second day of Christmas. (Yes, to our surprise, that’s a thing.) Our third stop is the one destination known for running 365 days a year: the Stromma canal tour. It’s heated and covered and we have extra tissues to wipe down the endlessly fogging glass. The hour long tour takes us under 14 bridges and through the canal of Copenhagen. The only time we step out into the rain is to take a picture of the much acclaimed and humorously underwhelming Little Mermaid statue. The city has few claims to fame, and Hans Christen Anderson is a hot ticket. The statue itself is tiny, perched on a rock in the shallow water, given to the city by the Carlsberg brewery, and one of the most commonly cited destinations in the city. After the tour, we head to lunch at a Cheesecake Factory style restaurant. (Mexican? Got it. Italian. Burgers. Sandwiches. Yup.) On the bright side, it opened our eyes to a new area of the city, and even though every other store in the shopping district is closed for the second day of Christmas, we enjoy the journey tucked safely underneath our umbrella and rain jacket.
We soon find ourselves next at an incredible bar for glogg. It’s a spot our morning barista had recommended to us, open only in the winter and situated on a dock along the canal. It’s crowded, warm, and the definition of what I’d pictured as hygge (Danish cozy).
Exhausted from some combination of jet lag and rain, we rest at our Airbnb before dinner. As expected of jet-lagged travelers, we sleep through our alarms and our 30-minute snooze turns into a 2-hour deep sleep. We wouldn’t necessarily call ourselves refreshed upon waking up, but at the same time, we knew we probably needed the sleep.
At the top of many lists of why to visit Copenhagen, we find Ruby, a bar located in the center of town with a living-room-esque atmosphere and excellent bar tenders. What better way to start our evening than at Ruby. It lives up to expectation. Okay, maybe not the best bar in the world as some sites suggested, but very homey, very welcoming, and with delicious cocktails. We find ourselves comfortable seats at the bar and quickly befriend all of the bartenders. Trying to find a dinner spot on this second day of Christmas turns out to not be trivial, but luckily, our new friends at Ruby’s are full of suggestions. We end up in a new neighborhood at a place called Falernum. It’s probably fair to call this place a wine bar given its wine menu was the length of a small novel. We had some perfectly prepared scallops, mushroom risotto, and a slow-cooked duck to pair with some great wines that they suggested. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is extremely unlikely and 10 is extremely likely, we would easily give this restaurant a 9 or 10 in terms of how likely we would be to recommend it to a friend or future traveller.
Although the day started out a bit slow, it being the second day of Christmas and all, we didn’t let that slow us down and feel like we know Copenhagen and its Danes a lot better.